Sunday, November 09, 2008

A couple of months ago I downloaded a bunch of old happy hardcore songs that I used to listen to back in my hardcore candy kid phase. I used to love this shit and really, I still do. This is still the kind of music that makes me want to dance my ass off.

This was an extremely liberating time of my life. It was the first time I really had control over my own life. College was something that wasn't even in my head as an option. I had no ambition or any idea of what I wanted to do with my life... and really there was nothing I wanted to do. I was working a dead end job in a call center with no apparent way out.

So, instead of being productive, I partied. It was awesome, me and my friend Dave would work full time at shitty jobs through the week and drive up to Toronto on the weekend to do drugs and dance all night long. After destroying ourselves on the dance floor we would drag ourselves back to our shitty small town sketched out, sleep deprived and not at all in proper condition to go to work. This is what our lives seemed to become about.

As much as reminiscing about these times tends to glorify them it is also important to remember how confusing it was. I have to remember I was generally depressed and hopelessly lonely. The partying wasn’t that amazing most of the time, I would dance by myself most of the time. I made some new friends and lost a few old ones. I learned to love and about loss.

Eventually I got on with my life and started to work towards my dreams. I don't think I would be who I am today without having done this. It surprisingly opened me up a lot and made me a lot less shy than I used to be. It gave me some hope that life could be good and worth living.